The use of therapeutic substances in combination with medical implants is a growing trend and has beneficial characteristics in many treatments. Therapeutic substances may be useful in promoting healing, fighting infection and disease by killing various pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, and microorganisms, promoting favorable cellular activity, killing cancer cells, or any of a wide variety of beneficial results. It may be advantageous to associate a therapeutic substance with a medical implant where the medical implant is implanted in a particularly advantageous location for effective application of the therapeutic substance.
It is a continuing challenge in the art to provide medical implants that may be conveniently and securely placed to deliver effective amounts of therapeutic substances in effective locations. Improved devices may provide secure connection to anatomical structures or to other medical device structures. It may be favorable for some improved implants that are capable of delivering a therapeutic substance to capture and securely fasten to existing medical device structures so that limited or no alteration to existing medical devices is necessary to implement the improved medical implants. It may be advantageous to provide medical implants capable of delivering a therapeutic substance that may be placed in a sequence that is complementary to existing surgical procedures.